Future Technology Revolutions: Human 2.0
This last week of Supermorning Technology will have a bit of philosophical fun with potential future technological revolutions.
Let’s start with a big one: creation of the next generation of enhanced human beings.
Evolution vs. revolution
Over the 200 millennia history of Homo sapiens, our biophysical structure has not improved much. In fact, we seem to have become somewhat smaller and weaker with smaller brains.
Yes, the human body and mind remains far from perfect, especially for the world we live in today.
In other words, evolution still has a huge amount of work to do.
But evolution is a painfully slow process. Also, as comically portrayed in the film Idiocracy, it’s slow crawl could even be heading in the wrong direction.
Luckily, technology is giving us the ability to increasingly augment the human body and mind.
This could replace slow and misguided evolution with intelligently designed revolution.
Mutants and cyborgs
Just imagine that we could rewrite the human genetic code.
This could allow us to give everyone Einstein’s brain and Ronaldo’s body. It can also help us delete bugs in the code like genetic diseases and even that annoying human trait called aging.
Next, imagine that we could further augment this genetic perfection with digital and mechanical technology.
Organs that never fail, mechanical muscles that never tire, digital brains with perfect recall and total knowledge access.
People are working very hard on the creation of such mutants and cyborgs.
It’s only a matter of time. Maybe it takes decades, maybe centuries, but superhumans are an inevitability.
How to prepare
Despite the enormous social, ethical and political implications of these technologies, it’s undeniable that they will massively enhance the human experience.
Giving yourself the best chance to experience such augmentations requires that you take excellent care of you health and wealth.
No one has any clue about how long it will take or what it will cost. But a long life and a sizable bank balance will surely boost your odds.
Having an inspirational and constructive long-term purpose to pursue with this added power will also be essential.
Great power not directed to a constructive purpose inevitably ends up as a destructive force. It’s critical that we master the double-edged sword of technology before our upgrade to version 2.0.
In short, the inevitability of superhumans is yet another great reason to develop healthy and wealthy environments, earn the liberty to pursue an inspiring purpose, and master our technology.